


Gotta Catch ‘em All

by paintedrecs



Series: Painted Landscapes (tumblr fics) [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Feels, Librarian Derek, M/M, POV Derek Hale, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Pokemon GO - Freeform, Probable Criminal Stiles, Warning: Kate Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7533199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek's got a quiet life and a quieter job. (He works in a library. That's pretty much a requirement.) Some people might call it slow, or lonely, or maybe even sad. But he's content with the way things are...until a guy in a ratty hoodie starts showing up every day to take pictures of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gotta Catch ‘em All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vendelin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vendelin/gifts).



> [Originally posted on tumblr](http://paintedrecs.tumblr.com/post/147552558400/gotta-catch-em-all), and thank you for the lovely response to it! I can't believe how neatly Sterek fits into any world you can imagine, or the most off-the-wall prompt.
> 
> The lovely birthday girl Em had asked for more words of what was originally a twitterfic. I didn't quite make the "5" she asked for (or the 20k), but I think the important ones are there. :)

Derek works in a smaller neighborhood branch of his town’s public library system. Author events, book signings, lectures: they’re nearly always at Central, which means Derek’s days tend to pass pretty quietly. He likes it that way. He likes being off the radar, able to slip in hours of reading on the slowest days. 

There’s enough to keep him busy, of course, and to keep his branch open. The neighborhood’s mostly made up of older folks - there’s a big senior living center a couple blocks away, and an assortment of small businesses that make it feel like a miniature town all to itself. Derek loves it. 

He can walk to work - it’s a longish walk, true, but it’s Northern California, so the weather’s nearly always pleasant - and swing by the grocery store on the way home. Pick up a Redbox, if he’s feeling drawn to any of the posters on the side of the kiosk. Choose some fresh vegetables from the farmer’s market pop-up shop, and a nice bottle of Chardonnay from the wine shop; drinking alone isn’t sad if you take the time to cook a nice dinner to go with it, he thinks. He’d argue the point if he had anyone to argue it with. 

He’s gotten to know a lot of people in the neighborhood, to the extent that he _wants_ to. The library has a steady stream of seniors browsing through the books and bringing stacks of DVDs to the counter. There are a lot of BBC series and Criterion Collections stocked on his shelves, but he’s particularly fond of Marta, who loves superhero movies and always stops by the desk to debate with Derek when she returns her latest; and Chuck, who’s at least 80 years old and picks out every musical he can find, humming bits of the choruses on his way out the door. 

Derek frequently helps both of them put in hold requests for movies to be transferred over from the other, larger branches. He does a lot of that: helping his patrons find what they’re looking for. Even guiding them through their technology woes, sometimes, although many of the elderly women who cycle through the library text more often, and more rapidly, than he does - his phone’s always on silent at work, but the screen usually remains dark, anyway.

There’s a large enough population of grandkids to keep the children’s section fairly large and well-stocked, and Derek spends a decent amount of time reshelving scattered piles of picture books and maintaining order in the chaos that erupts each time a crowd of children storms through. The kids call him Mister Hale, have their own library cards that they proudly produce, and insist on carrying their _own_  books and putting them up on the counter _themselves_. 

Derek installed a sturdy step stool early on, so he could see more than tufts of hair and bright little eyes staring over the counter, little arms stretched overhead to hand over their books to be scanned.

The teen section is the smallest. He keeps some graphic novels and bestsellers on hand, but there’s little point in curating a full collection, when the high school’s downtown, and that population spends all its time at Central or the branch on Maple - on the east side of town, near the Walmart and the movie theater and the bowling alley.

He’s happy, most days. He’s finally stopped looking over his shoulder, or flinching when people speak to him. The ladies he sees on his walks smile at him and call him Derek, or dear (which he doesn’t mind), or sweetie (which he does, but he tries not to let it show), but they only pass the time, as they would with any of their other friends. They don’t brazenly check him out, or try to pinch his ass, or stroke sharp fingers over his biceps, or make him feel dirty and used and wrong.

It took time to get past that. But he’s there now, he thinks. He feels safe. A little anonymous, in a nice way. Settled into a life that’s got enough variety to keep it interesting, and enough routine to give him stability.

Until the day a guy in a ratty old hoodie stops outside the library, taking pictures through the windows.

Derek’s not sure if he’s been there before: it takes him a while to notice the guy, so used to keeping his head buried in his book, his glasses set aside because he really only  _needs_ them for driving, or for identifying faces at a distance. (Neither of which he has much call to do anymore.) But once he catches a glimpse of him, he can’t seem to _stop_  seeing him.

The guy’s probably somewhere in his late twenties: tall, wearing battered Chucks and jeans that aren’t entirely flattering. He stays outside, at first, walking the length of the building in odd, slow loops, but mostly stopping at the wide bank of windows that Derek used to love having right by his desk. It made the space feel bright and open, the green trees rustled by soft breezes, providing a relaxed, lush backdrop to the hushed, book-scented solitude indoors. 

It doesn’t take long for the guy to start wandering inside, which Derek quickly decides is worse. He focuses his cellphone camera for long periods of time at Derek’s desk, and at Derek himself, swiping at his screen, frowning down at it in concentration, as though taking photo after photo, unable to decide which he prefers. He always seems vaguely dissatisfied, not getting exactly what he wants. Derek doesn’t know _what_  he wants. He never speaks, never makes eye contact. He comes in at roughly the same time every day, stays for anywhere from five minutes to half an hour, then leaves.

It’s weird, but Derek can’t pin down how he feels about it. The guy is either the least subtle stalker he’s ever encountered, or the world’s worst private investigator. Either way, Derek’s experienced worse. 

He’s been stalked before. It’s not pleasant. But Kate was…well, she knew how to keep it under wraps, making everyone else believe in her sugary innocence, convincing them Derek was delusional, or the one at fault.

The wounds start feeling fresh again, and Derek’s hands start sweating, the skin on the backs of his shoulders prickling when he’s out after dark. He’d gotten _past_  this. He’s not going to sink under the uninvited weight of someone’s attention again. 

His life is here now; he’s built it carefully, brick by brick, and he intends to stay. To argue with Marta over the best Avenger (she thinks Captain America is dreamy; he’ll always believe in Iron Man). To listen to Chuck sing a few bars of a song he only half-remembers, then google the lyrics to help him identify the musical, and find out whether the library has a copy. To exclaim over the pile of books Beatrice’s grand-niece hands to him, leaving his desk to locate a couple new books from the series he remembers being her favorite.

So one day he snaps.

The guy jerks in surprise, his hood finally falling back, revealing messy brown hair and wide, dark eyes. He sheepishly turns his phone screen around so Derek - towering angrily over him, although it’s hard to be intimidating when you’re the same height and the guy doesn’t seem particularly fazed by his presence - can see what he’s been so intently focused on. 

“The library’s a gym,” he explains, considerately keeping his voice to the same low, library-appropriate tone Derek had used to confront him. He jabs a long finger at the building on the screen, a spiky yellow creature floating over it. “I’ve gotta defend my territory. And there are always a _lot_ of extra Pokémon around here; it’s kind of crazy, because there aren’t a ton of Pokéstops in this area, but they’re always busy. You don’t even need to set up lures." 

"Oh,” Derek says, only understanding about half of the words. He’s been vaguely aware of the game, but this blur of language, a world he hasn’t dipped into since he was a kid with a Gameboy, is making him feel off-balance, as old as Chuck. Older, maybe. Cora would have a field day with this. 

He unthinkingly touches the phone in his pocket. He should call her, probably. The last time had been rough - she hadn’t understood why he had to move, why he hadn’t stood strong and tried to drive Kate out of town instead. It wasn’t cowardice, though, not in the way she thought. It was self-preservation, a way to breathe freely again, without the flowery scent of her perfume haunting his steps.

He feels embarrassed, now, at the assumptions he’d been making. “So you weren’t taking pictures of me?” he asks, to be sure.

The guy laughs and turns red, as though the thought had never occurred to him until this moment. He starts to deny it, then stops himself mid-word, frowns thoughtfully, and flicks into his photos.

“Holy shit,” he says softly, keeping his phone angled so Derek can see him navigate into his Instagram, can see that he’s not making an attempt to hide anything. “You’re behind Jigglypuff,” he says, pulling up a photo with the round pink Pokémon kicking at the screen, Derek in the background, his cable-knit sweater rolled up to his elbows, his chin propped in one hand, smiling down at the pages of a book.

“Wow, okay, that explains why _that_ photo was way more popular than the rest I posted,” the guy says, laughing a little at himself. “And here I was thinking it was because of the awesome pose. Jigglypuff was really hard to catch, too, the adorable little fucker. I think I wasted like fifteen Pokéballs on him, bouncing them off his freakishly cute head until he stopped breaking free.” He runs a hand through his hair, sending it into even worse disarray, turns his head to look at Derek, who’s standing closer to him than he’d realized; their noses are nearly touching now, but neither one of them attempts to move away. "So hey, I’m Stiles - Stilinski, my dad’s the sheriff, and my grandma lives at the center down the street? And it turns out I’m kind of an idiot who doesn’t pay attention to my surroundings, but if you’re willing to rethink that library ban…" 

"You’re unbanned,” Derek says gruffly, pulling out his phone, finally shifting away a hairsbreadth, his skin prickling again at the guy’s proximity, but for an entirely different reason this time. 

“Hell yeah, I’ll give you my number!” Stiles says, lighting up at the offer, his eyes almost seeming to glow with his excitement, more of a honey-brown now that Derek’s looking more closely - or liquid gold, rare and irresistible. The kind of thing a man might spend his life trying, and failing, to find. 

It’s a trick of the lights, Derek reminds himself, pushing down on the poetic language he’s too prone to fall into when he’s not being careful.

“No,” Derek says, before Stiles’s enthusiasm can spill over into something that sweeps him along with it. “I’m downloading the app. If I work in a herd of Pokémon, I might as well take advantage of it." 

Stiles’s face falls, and Derek pretends to be focused on his phone, shooting careful glances up at him through his eyelashes. He _is_ attractive. Which Derek had gathered, to a lesser degree, from the glimpses he’d been able to catch behind the phone and the hoodie. 

It had made the whole situation all the more difficult to deal with. Derek had been attracted to _Kate_ , after all. He always seemed to be drawn to the creeps; there was something about him that drew them in, let them know he was a vulnerable target. Cora’s jaw had clenched when he’d said as much, but she hadn’t been able to deny it.

But…Stiles is nodding softly to himself, pocketing his phone for the first time since Derek started seeing him around, and moving toward the door. He’s ready to give up without a fight, respecting Derek’s refusal. Derek knows that shouldn’t come as such a surprise, shouldn’t be enough to sway him, but…that’s not how these kinds of encounters usually go. Not that he’s ever had one quite like this. With someone who’s intriguing, and funny, and vibrant, and seemingly kind. Someone he’d like to talk to more. Get to know better.

"Wait,” Derek says, making it sound casual. “You’d better give me your number. In case any rare ones show up when you’re not around." 

Stiles turns back, his grin almost painfully bright, but honest, open. He seems surprised and pleased by the invitation, as though it’s something to be cherished. "Good idea,” he says, sounding just as casual. “There’s a nice cafe around the corner - I caught my Pikachu there a couple days ago. Maybe we should go there for a few hours when you get off work? See what we find?”

It’s the worst pickup line Derek’s ever heard. He finds it impossibly charming. 

“Sure,” he agrees. 

Turns out he was Stiles’s best catch. And, despite the game sitting patiently on his phone, the only one Derek will ever need.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [paintedlandscape](http://paintedlandscape.tumblr.com/) (regular blog) or [paintedrecs](http://paintedrecs.tumblr.com/) (fandom blog), but I'm starting to put some of my tumblr fics over here in case people's Yahoo fears come true.


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